Why DH left me disappointed with one of my favorite characters

[torchedsong]

(I've been lurking in this community for a couple of days now, reading posts from way back and enjoying the discussion [and snark]. I know this topic has been done before numerous times, but I hope it's okay for me to offer my thoughts as well

Comments

[zigadenus]

WILD APPLAUSE.

[torchedsong]

Thank you. I know all of this has been said many times before, but after finishing DH a second time in years, I had to let it out. I've read the other HP books at least twice when I was younger, but DH is the one I can't go back to more than twice. It wasn't only Snape's characterization and death that disappointed me, but it's definitely on the top of the list.

[sergeuvir]

Dating for sex - rebee.*ru (del *)

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[chantaldormand]

First of all, from semi-newbie to another newbie: welcome to the community :)
As far as I'm concerned there is nothing wrong in returning to old discussions. Especially since a lot of people who participated in those discussions either moved on to other hobbies/parts of internet or are not very active nowadays.

As for the subject on the hand? I have to agree.
In HP verse there is a lot of characters whom I genuinely liked in pre-HBP era, not because they were nice or good characters, but because either they were interesting or had potential to grow into something interesting.
I mean for all criticism I sling on Lucius and Voldemort in my chapter commentaries, before OotP I genuinely considered them to be 'deep' and 'interesting'. Well by HP standards :P

I think I mentioned it in some of my posts and comments, but I believe that aside from essays during her education, HP was her first written work. A lot of mistakes and writing faux-pass we see in her works (especially in her early works) mirror those of teenage writers. I can't

[torchedsong]

Thank you for the welcome to the community! =D

[chantaldormand]

This might sound silly, but there is something that was nagging my brain so I'm going to say it: perhaps JKR cannot comprehend how anybody can like Snape because the Severus/Lily/James love triangle stands for something different for her than for us.
You might say 'duh, it's obvious!, but let's look at the characters involved in this affair:
Lily: saint, pure lady of whom love men fight
James: a man who used to be bad, but through his struggles for the lady's love he becomes better man.
Severus: a man who introduces the lady to the court, he doesn't treat her well (from author's perspective), but struggles to keep her by his side.
To me it reads like corrupted version of Courtly Love.
We know that Jo used other elements from Arthurian mythology and that she writes parodies of creatures from fairy tales (poor brownies), so it wouldn't surprise me if in her mind Severus/Lily/James was her reinterpretation of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot.

[torchedsong]

I think you make a good point that the Severus/Lily/James dynamic stands for something different for JKR than it does for us. Lily is the pure lady whose heart the two "knights" fight for. James is the immature and boyish but good young man who changed his ways to be worthy of his lady love. Severus is the dark and obsessive young man who chose ambition over love and made himself unworthy of his object of affection

[aikaterini]

I agree with you. I don't find anything uplifting about Snape's motivation being Lily, because of the way that it was presented and the way that it ties into JKR's overall treatment of Snape

[torchedsong]

I agree with your entire comment! You've eloquently articulated everything I've wanted to touch upon

[oryx_leucoryx]

The ironic thing of course is that she actually wrote Severus as the person who did the most to protect Harry, protect students in general from all kinds of (physical) harm, especially in an environment like Hogwarts where it is a wonder that students aren't getting killed in droves. He does so while being insulting so it apparently doesn't count.

[torchedsong]

In the world of HP, students go to a school where incompetent professors are hired, a basilisk slithers in the pipes, a three-headed dog guards a stone, detentions are spent in a forest, staircases move, ghosts float about in bathrooms, and all sorts of chaotic things are considered acceptable. It makes Snape's vicious classroom behavior seem just as over-the-top as the rest of Hogwarts. It's hyperbolic and fantastical

Thanks!

[mary_j_59]

It was good to get some more Snape-love near his birthday! And I do agree Snape, like every other character, was diminished by DH. I don't agree it destroyed his character, though. A couple of things

Re: Thanks!

[torchedsong]

"We see Dumbledore coldly and deliberately manipulating that guilt in order to use Severus as his tool. Yet he is "the epitome of goodness" and Severus is "deeply horrible"? Please

Re: Thanks!

[mary_j_59]

Oh, I'm glad you can see where I was coming from. I don't think I was terribly coherent. The main thing about the way Rowling presents Severus is that it's not believable (the ascribed motivations, I mean, not the actions). And then, as Aikaterini says, she deliberately limits HARRY'S growth. Harry never has to do the hard work of truly reconciling with Severus. He never has to apologize to anyone; he never has to grow up. But I've ranted about this many times.

Don't know if you're into fanfic at all? I have some Snape stories on my live journal, and one of them (written pre-DH) is actually my theory as to where the story would go, and (a bit) why. It's called "The Last Horcrux". Speaking of which, I got mocked by a Rowling fan for insisting, pre-DH, that Harry was the last horcrux. Well, he was, wasn't he?!

Re: Thanks!

[torchedsong]

I finished reading the fanfic you wrote and enjoyed your portrayal of where the story could've gone in DH! The scene where Snape takes Harry to Voldemort reminded me a bit of Darth Vader taking Luke to Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. One of my favorite scenes from Star Wars is when Luke chooses mercy and compassion over killing his father and giving in to the dark side. He rejects the hatred that Palpatine attempts to inflame within him. In his rejection of violence and revenge, Luke is saved by his father and Vader is redeemed

[darth_eldritch]

Yes! I found the entire thing about Snape obsessed with Lily to be annoying; or, rather, that being such a major part of his character. This is often a problem with thematic writing; characters are shoe horned into being something that essentially stunts that character's development, or deprives them of agency. to make them secondary to another character's story along a theme

[torchedsong]

I think JK Rowling is decent at world-building, atmosphere, and plot-driven writing, but she's mediocre at character-driven stories and giving her characters growth and depth. And she's terrible at writing romance

[seductivedark]

I think the simplest answer is, she had three main characters, one of whom was a girl. She had one of these characters' little sister as an occasional secondary character that she showed more than she showed other girls. Our Hero couldn't marry outside of this tight-knit group, and neither could the one Sidekick. Sidekick can't marry his sister, therefore he gets the main female while Hero gets the sister.

[nx74defiant]

I think JK Rowling is decent at world-building, atmosphere, and plot-driven writing, but she's mediocre at character-driven stories and giving her characters growth and depth. And she's terrible at writing romance

I've seen other comments that JKR is great observer of people. The people she describes really captivate our imaginations. But her weakness is in understanding their motivations. When she tries to get into their heads is where it doesn't work.

So often find myself thinking, but that does not make sense for the person you decribed to be thinking or feeling that way!